The Napoleon Bubble by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 11, 1866

The Napoleon Bubble.

By Editor

It is well known that there are some who, making mince-meat of the prophecies generally, are strenuously endeavoring to set up Napoleon III, as the great fulfillment of many of the ancient prophetic records, the Antichrist, the eighth head of the beast, the dictator of nations, the destined monarch of the world, the all in all of political objects now before mankind. It is apparent that all these illusions must vanish into thin air, whenever he ceases to have a controlling influence in European affairs. His prestige as the “destined monarch of the world,” is gone so soon as he meets with a power which dictates to him, instead of being dictated by him. And it seems that even now such an event has occurred. According to the following article which we clip from the Independent, he made a demand of Prussia, which was snubbed with an immediate and emphatic No; and in this unexpected emergency, he found himself not in a position to enforce his claims. The event is caricatured in Harper’s Weekly more forcibly than it can be described in words. Count Bismark, the Prussian prime minister, and Napoleon, are represented as on the precipitous bank of a river, fishing. Bismark has a pole of goodly dimensions, and a line of suitable length, with which he has procured a noble string of fish. Napoleon appears not only fishless, but with less than half a line, which will not anywhere near reach the water. Napoleon hereupon says to Bismark, “My line will not reach the river; give me some of yours.” Bismark immediately replies, “Not a bit of it!” “Ah! well, then,” responds Napoleon, “keep it yourself,” and pockets the refusal, and goes without his fish with whatever grace he can. Haven’t those who have written so much about Napoleon, all the while meant Bismark? Who knows?

But to the article, a careful perusal of which we commend to the aforesaid Napoleontites in general, and “Rev. Mr. Baxter” in particular. Under the heading of “New Europe,” the Independent says:

The spoiled children of this world are used to have all they ask for; and Napoleon III, that minion of fortune, has been so spoiled that, when he asked of Prussia a frontier on the Rhine, there were those who thought that through either war or peace, he was sure to get it. It has proved otherwise. The demand was carried to Berlin, and, without receiving the grace of respectful delay and consideration, was answered in a day with a prompt, decided, and emphatic negative; meaning not only that the Prussians would not voluntarily yield a foot of German soil, but would resist encroachment with all of the gigantic power they have lately manifested. With this baffled attempt at territorial extortion, the new lines created by the war are defined; and we are enabled to re-draw the European maps of last year, now a century or more out of date. For the war of a fortnight, did the work of an age. Italy is extended from the Alps to the Apennines. The boundaries of Prussia are enlarged so as to give it a compact roundity between the Rhine, the Main, the Baltic, and Poland. Austria loses Venetia, and such claims as she had to Holstein. The king of Hanover, and some of the minor magnates of Northern Germany, surrender their dominions to Prussia. There is to be for the moment a confederation of Southern German States, patronized by Bavaria; but presently to be absorbed by the union at the north, and made Prussian. Such are the geographical re-arrangements that may be regarded as already settled.

But it is in politics that the most radical change has been made. At the helm of European affairs is a new pilot; one without nobility of race or noteworthy antecedents, and who, when Louis Napoleon was planning his canvass for the presidency of the new French Republic, had just emerged from the obscurity of a small landholder and farmer, and tried his unpracticed hand at the internal politics of Prussia. Bismark, in a score of years, has placed Prussia at the van of the first-class powers; has accomplished for Italy what Napoleon III undertook, but failed to do; has expelled Austria from the German Empire, and destroyed her importance in continental politics; has established the supremacy of his government in a military point of view; added vast areas and much-needed seaports to the Prussian territory; and checked the territorial greed of the French. In thus elevating and benefiting his country, the new statesman has raised himself; so that hereafter, he, rather than the French emperor, must be considered the arbiter of European public law. This is the most conspicuous result of the war; and all-important, because it involves all others. It is Prussia who shall henceforth rule in the councils of the Great Powers. England indeed has abdicated all authority on the continent; Austria is prostrate; Italy feeble; Russia not fairly recovered from the consequences of the Crimean war and emancipation; and France deprived of the prestige left it by the war of 1859. In the novelty of these conditions, political forecast is set at naught; and we have to watch the course of events with much the same unenlightened interest as that of the astronomer, across whose object-glass a new and mighty planet has floated. For an explanation of the phenomena, we must wait upon time.